PMS 2.0 1397 - The Cowboys Trade Micah Parsons to the Packers, College Football Week 1 Preview, Matt Rhule, Will Howard, Ryan Day, Nick Saban, & AJ Hawk

19:59Pat McAfee:That was a Cincinnati home game, Coach. I'm sure they felt that. Obviously, we know the Nebraska fan base is one of the things that you were so pumped up about whenever you decided to take that job three years ago. What did you see from your team last night? What did you see from the quarterback last night that maybe makes you believe this could be a year that's special for your team, like most third-year rule coach teams. Temple, massive jump in the third year. The culture's implemented. Baylor, third year, culture implemented. Huge, huge jump. And then I actually jump off a boat there in that particular third year.

20:31Pat McAfee:Now in your third year in Nebraska, what did you see last night that makes you think this team could be special, or what do you think you need to work on? Well, obviously we have a lot to work on, but I thought the biggest thing was our best players made plays. Our telemedic Emmitt Johnson ran for over 100 yards. You see an Isaiah Hunter here transferred in for us, made a big play to score a touchdown. And then, like I said, Malcolm Hartsock picks that ball off to win the game. And, you know, you said it earlier, Pat, like I think the biggest thing, like when you watch the best teams in college football, you know, take out the talent, obviously.

21:02But I mean, the best teams, they go in expecting to win, man. They don't panic. A team comes roaring back. A team makes a couple plays and they go out there and they just make a couple more plays. And so I felt for the first time last night a bunch of guys on the sidelines that were like, no, we're not going down. We're going to go out. We're going to find a way to make a play. And their quarterback, Soresby, was awesome. He competed at a really high level. But at the end of the day, like I said, Malcolm went up and took the ball away, and we got to celebrate.

21:32Pat McAfee:Yeah, insane interception to end the game. Great way to kick off this college football season. It's going to be electrifying really late at night, but it was still an awesome thing. You know, got me out of my bed a little bit there. Fourth and seven, you call that timeout. I was half asleep while you had to make that decision. They have no timeouts. You potentially could win the game. I knew there had to be some sort of, ah, what do we want? Best play Kodak. What goes into that decision, and how many people are kind of in your ear at that moment? Yeah, no, Kodak's exactly right, man. Hey, let's take a picture.

22:03Let's see what they're in. Let's get the best defense possible. Let's get our guys a chance so that we can see, all of our guys can see what they're in and try to go make a play. John Butler's our DC, a really smart guy, and he asked for it, so we did it. And, you know, you only have timeouts at the end of the game if your guys did things right in the third and fourth quarter. And, you know, we played clean. We didn't have any massive, massive errors, so we were able to save our timeouts down the stretch. They had to use up all theirs to get the ball back, and we did that. Now, they went and made that play on fourth and seven, as you know.

22:37and great play by them. I can't say enough about their quarterback, but I thought he was a warrior last night.

22:43Pat McAfee:Yeah, it was fun to watch him, especially in that moment. That's a huge moment. Fourth and seven game on the line, throws a strike. But I enjoyed the joust that was happening between you and Cincinnati first week of the season. AJ has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, I hear you. This year was one of the first times you actually have captains. You got voted on and you have captains now for this team. What made you do that? What is this team, I guess, what's the culture like to where you felt like this is something that you should do? You know, AJ, I think a lot of times nowadays guys are like, hey, you know, I'm going to lead by example.

23:16You know, I don't want to, if I say this, I don't know how people are going to react. I don't, coach, I'm not really up for all that. So we've always kind of done like, all right, we'll have a game captain, a game captain, let, you know, let leadership emerge. But, you know, when you have a quarterback like we have in Dillon, when you have the guys we have on our back end, You know, we have a bunch of seniors in the secondary. We have an offensive line that wants to impose themselves. They came to me and they're like, hey, we want to lead. And so they recognize that nothing's going to be easy in college football nowadays.

23:45I mean, these conferences are hard, travel's hard, everyone wants to play well. But they wanted to be the guys that led the whole thing and they asked for it. So, you know, I don't want to be one of those coaches who's set in my ways. If the guys come to me and they say, Coach, we want to vote for captains, man, I'm going to slap a C on someone's chest and then hold them accountable and tell them to go do it. And so that's what I'm fired up about today. Some of the football has to get a lot better, but the fact that our guys didn't panic and the leaders stepped up and led, that makes my job a lot easier.

24:16Pat McAfee:Yeah, let's talk about some of that leadership. Connor has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, I believe it was the second quarter, maybe the first, and it was first and goal from the one, and there was a false start. and I believe you guys ended up with a field goal instead of a touchdown. After that false start, you can see Rayola kind of look back towards the sideline and then come back to the huddle. Actually, they showed him not yelling at, but clearly holding the player that I won't name or tell his number that went offside, kind of letting him know, hey, can't have that. You could see him give him some words to him, and then obviously that's kind of the leadership you were just talking about.

24:55You mentioned the accountability you have with your captains. What about your captains to the rest of the team? That seems like a very important kind of leadership down the line, if you will. Yeah, no doubt, man. I mean, I think that's the key, right? I mean, that game came down to, you know, one play. And what we're always trying to teach them, like, you know, typical coach, but it's so true is it's not always the one play that happened at the end of the game. I mean, that field goal that was instead of touchdown, that was a four-point play. And so, you know, we don't want to embarrass people in public.

25:29We don't want to embarrass people on camera. I mean, we're not trying to do that. But, I mean, as a brotherhood, when we step on that field, like we've got to have a mentality that iron sharpens iron. And we've got to hold each other to a high standard. And that's the word that we try to talk a lot about nowadays is just standards. You know, it's not your feelings. It's what we expect. And so you can't false start on the one. I mean, we were literally on the one-inch line. Yeah. And, you know, those are the plays that in the past have sent us into like a free fall. Right. And so, hey, we, you know, we dealt with it.

25:59We went out, we kicked the field goal, we got off the field and we reset. And so that's the growth, I think, in Nebraska. But, yeah, we're going to hold each other accountable. We're tough. You know, we're tough, tough minded. We don't need a soft environment where we're all, you know, walking on eggshells.

26:14Pat McAfee:I love everything about that. OK, we like that that's happening again. Feels like that's coming back into style. It is coming back. Coach, do you feel that? Do you feel like it's, you know, the tough, hard-nosed kind of mentality is coming back into the sport a little bit? I think absolutely so. I think we all gravitate towards those people, man. Like, you know, my guys get up in the morning, right? You know, I hear them. They listen to Inky Johnson, you know, the hip-hop preacher. They listen to David Goggins. Like, they want to be that. Like, I think as men, like, we want to go out and we want to do hard things.

26:46And so what we're just trying to do is build a culture where we tell them, like, it's okay to do hard things. You know, like, people wake up every day and pay, like, you know,$100 a month to go do CrossFit and do jump around like ninjas and do all this hard stuff. Like, we're going to try to do that in our football program. So I 100 % think it's coming back. And I think it's a good thing. I think, you know, I want my kids. I have three kids. I want my kids to grow up not looking at everything in life as a threat. Like, oh, my God, I want them to see things as a challenge for them to overcome. and so I want my players to see it the same way.

27:19Pat McAfee:Opportunity there. You know, that is what it's all about. Hearing you old school dudes talk about that and the thought that it was almost going to disappear for a little bit. And I love the fact that you're like, let me see your algorithms, boys. Let me see the algorithms. What's on the explore page? What's on the explore page? I need to see motivation. I need to see fighting. Okay, a little golf is fine. Don't know what all that stuff is, boys. Okay, a lot of this seems like you guys need to stop following a certain thing. Yeah, probably. I love that everybody's explore page kind of looks the same at some point, but I like that you're listening to what the boys are getting jacked up to.

27:53Pat McAfee:It's how you can learn about them. Now, there was some questions about something that has seemingly been a staple at Nebraska for a long time, the black shirts. Tone has a question for you, Coach. Yeah, Coach, it's no secret that the first two years at Nebraska for you, the defense carried your team, and they were unbelievable. And then this year it felt like everyone was like, oh, we got no worries about the offense. Feels like the offense is going to be good. a new OC, but on the defense, also a new offensive coordinator. You lost a couple dogs off the D line. So there were some questions about the defense that has carried the team.

28:23You talked about Sorsby. You made a couple of plays, but it felt like the defense, like you guys looked really good on the defensive side last night. How did you feel about that side? How did it feel for them to close out the game? Yeah, you know, I thought we had some really good moments on defense, you know, and to your point, you know, we lost Ty Robinson, who was, I mean, he didn't get nearly enough credit. The Eagles got themselves an unbelievable player in tie. Always do. We had the polar bear Nash last year. He's in Tampa Bay. So we had some great ones. You know, there were some stretches in that game.

28:50I think it was when Pat was sleeping. So, Pat, I'm glad you slept through this part, brother. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, I'm glad because, you know, there were some parts of that game where we went two straight drives where I don't even think they threw a pass and they went down and scored. And they just went tempo. And, you know, you're in the Big Ten. You don't see a lot of tempo. And that's not an excuse. That's like that we put on tape that if you go tempo against us, We didn't stop it last night, man. Like, they just went play, play, play, play, play. And some of it was the quarterback dropping back and then just escaping up the middle, and he was running.

29:24And so we made the plays to close it out. We took the ball away twice, you know, which led to the win and led to a touchdown. But, man, we got to tackle better. We can't give up 200 yards rushing, especially, you know, you get into the Big Ten, you face the teams that we're going to face. All this football right now is fun, but, you know, when it gets to be 40 degrees, when it gets to be 30 degrees, You better be able to stop the run. So we got some work to do this week.

29:46Pat McAfee:Yeah, it's Big Ten football, baby. Always will be. Hey, look out for that Iowa Hawkeye team. They got more Grunaski now. Ain't that right, Todd? Yeah, well said, well said. And a lot of people are saying, hey, that Iowa-Nebraska game at the end of the year could decide a playoff spot from the Big Ten. Coach, obviously massive win last night. Like you said, you got to clean some things up. But going into this year, is there maybe a different message to the team with, you know, everyone knows about the rule third year, that team's going to go on and do great things. And then a lot of people nationally are saying, hey, Nebraska, look at this team to maybe slip into the playoffs this year.

30:24Does that change the message to the team at all or not really? And you guys can't pay attention to that kind of stuff. You know, I think it's a great question. I think to some degree, yes. I mean, to a major degree, yes. It's like, you know, we want to have our guys walking around this facility expecting to go win and expecting for good things to happen. And, you know, we're a better team now than we were the last two years. And we'll be, you know, I think we're on this great path of ascension that will continue on for years to come. But, man, like you have to expect good things to happen. You can't just be like, oh, I hope we get, you know, some crumbs at the table this year.

31:02I mean, you have to go out and fight for it. So my message to the guys is like, man, you have to take ownership of this. I'm going to do the best I can. I'll take ownership of my role. But you've got to go out and you've got to go make the plays to win the game. And, you know, that was what was so great. The message for last night was, you know, Malcolm coming over the top and cover to it's him and another player. And it's, you know, 50-50 ball. And we won the game because of him. And so I've always believed that, like, you know, players win games. I'm a much better coach when I have great players.

31:30And so I want my players to go out there with a little bit of swagger, a little bit of confidence, a little bit of energy and go make plays that maybe the last two years they were like, oh, what if I make a mistake? We don't live in what if anymore. We're trying to live in what is and be in the moment and just go out there and play ball the way we know we know how.

31:49Pat McAfee:Feels like the culture's in. Does it feel like that with the boys? I mean, obviously, we got a lot to learn. We got to play better ball. And Big Ten football is going to happen at some point. You're going to have to win very tough games. That's everybody all season long. But the third year thing, that's because you feel like that is kind of instituted in at this point? Yeah, I love the culture that we have. I mean, like, I ran out of the tunnel for the first time ever because the guys were like, hey, coach, you need to run out of the tunnel. I said, I don't really believe in it. I think coaches should be in the side, let the players run out.

32:18But, like, man, I love this group of guys. And, you know, they're not – like, they're a gritty, tough group. They're not entitled. They're not soft. They're tough, and they're tough-minded. And so, I mean, that's – I mean, I'm just a former walk-on that's just trying to make my way in coaching. Like I'm not one of these big-name guys. Trying to make your way.

32:41Pat McAfee:Yeah, yeah. Trying to make your way. Yeah, just trying to make my way, Pat. I mean, I'm just trying to – Which way is the field? Yeah. But I love them. Like it's like, you know what? But we're just going to quietly stand over here to Cornhuskers and battle our way. But like I said, I don't believe anything will be easy in the Big Ten. But I like that, as Coach Paterno used to say, this group has moxie. They got toughness. And so even getting in that locker room last night, I tell our guys all the time, there's no greater feeling in the world. You guys know this. There's no greater feeling in the world than being in the locker room after a big win.

33:18And a win like that was pretty dang cool.

33:21Pat McAfee:Hell yeah, especially in Arrowhead. I mean, you talk about being in a legendary place in the history of the game and everything like that. It's a cool way to start the season. And on that note, I'd like to officially announce to the world that we are incredibly lucky that we'll be riding alongside the Nebraska Cornhuskers season this year, catching up with you every single week. We appreciate you agreeing to do that. We are very, very, very, very, very pumped about that. And we love you, man. We're big fans. So we appreciate you doing this. We appreciate you believing that our show could be a potential additive.

33:52Pat McAfee:And also congrats on all the weight loss. You look remarkable out there. I love that. I love that thing. You just put, there was a fat picture of me and then a skinny picture of me. Yeah, that's exactly why I said that. That was my first time seeing that graphic. And I said, Holy shit, there's the before and the after right there. You look unbelievable. And we're thankful you're doing this coach. I'm not. First of all, I'm grateful. I mean, I think you know this, but I'm a fan of the show when I'm not on. I mean, it's on in this building all the time. And I love the way you guys speak authentically about what's going on in sports.

34:26And so I'm so excited to represent Nebraska, but also to represent just football, college football. I mean, I was up this morning reading about the Parsons deal in case I got some questions about that. Man, I want to be a big member of the show. And if I get boring, you can just do a weigh-in and just see if I'm on the fat side or the skinny side. We can just see where I'm at as the season goes on.

34:50Pat McAfee:I like your coming with ideas. That's a solutions guy. We like that. Ideas. Hey, if it gets bad, just put me on a scale. Everything will work out. It's not going to get bad because you're incredible with us every time you're on. We appreciate you. Congrats on the big win last night. We'll see you next week. Thank you, guys. Hey, whose house rules. See you, brother. Have a good one. I think that's the name of this podcast. Rules House. Are you 100 %? Pull. Should be now. It is now. It is now. I didn't know if you wanted me. I wasn't going to bring anything back. I was saying our house. I have seen the promo video where he does the walk and talk.

35:26It's amazing. Thank you. Yes. So follow the product.

35:30Pat McAfee:We're trying to be the best football people. Okay. Is it Rules House? For sure. Do we know? I thought it was House Rules. Oh, no. Oh, no. No, I'm just kidding. I got no idea. I think it is house rules. It's house rules confirmed. Oh, it is? Wait, was he on when you said whose house? Yeah, he was. Rules high. Did he repeat it? No, no, no. He didn't know what I was doing, obviously. Because it doesn't make sense. That could be. If I change it to rules high. Yeah, that could be a good nickname. You sold me, though. Yeah, that was impressive. He's going to join us. I can't wait for that. Him with the Parsons stuff, we should have asked him.

36:08Pat McAfee:We missed it. Yeah, pot him back up. It's Nebraska season. It's Nebraska season. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It is. Okay, joining us now is a man who's 6 '7", maybe 7' tall. And he's a national champion at this particular institution. He's a guy who's currently a Pittsburgh Steeler. Ladies and gentlemen, Will Hart. Yeah!

36:30Pat McAfee:You can be down there, Will. Hey, strong dap with that thumb. I just would like to let everybody know that was a very, very strong, strong dap. You can move in a little bit if you want inside that helmet. Yeah, here we go. Let's see if we got you. What's up, gentlemen? 18 feet tall. How are you doing? Cameraman, can you just, Buck, can you have AJ and Will on that particular shot? Zoom in, cameraman. You look tall. You look tall. You don't look that bad. You look pretty tall. I got a little bend in the knees. Yeah, very kind of you to do that. Will, thank you for joining us. Is this your first time back since being drafted to the Pittsburgh Steelers?

37:03Yeah, I think I stopped by for a little bit in, like, July. But really first time being back, you know, obviously under under these circumstances, which with a big game on the line You know, I think it was like a two-day thing that I stopped by for so it's good to be back man It feels like home.

37:18Pat McAfee:How does it? Yeah, you said it feels like home If obviously you transfer in here and have this magical run last year, which had a couple you know Obstacles in it obviously early in the season at Oregon We don't have to talk about the whole thing that happened on this particular field But then you guys became the hottest team in football We were watching some highlights from last year's game day and from last year whenever we were doing a simulcast, and it was evident to us that you guys were the best football team in America. Like, you guys steamrolled through that playoff run. What did it feel like in the moment, and when did you guys know that you were proverbially in your bag, if you will, last year?

37:51Pat McAfee:Because we saw it immediately, it felt like. Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously all the things that we went through throughout the season, you know, it wasn't ideal. It wasn't how we drew it up, you know, losing that Oregon, and losing here to that team up north. But I think all those things that we did go through really did set us up for that run. And I think once we kind of came out in that Tennessee game and we started putting it on those guys and then the Rose Bowl came and we started making some plays, I felt really confident going into both of those games. But really I think it was after that Rose Bowl or during that Rose Bowl where we all kind of looked at each other like, all right, man, nobody's stopping us right now.

38:27Just the way that we're playing and the way that we were clicking on all cylinders I mean it was a hell of a run. It was one of the most memorable four games that I think a lot of people could say they have been through. So I'll cherish it for a long time. But I learned a lot throughout that whole run of the playoffs. Obviously nobody thought we were going to do anything for those first three weeks leading up to the Tennessee game. And then we really found it in ourselves. And it's a credit to the leaders that we had on that team last year and the seniors and all those guys that came back. And I'm just excited to watch these guys run it back and hopefully do it again this year.

39:02Pat McAfee:What's your relationship like with Coach Ryan Day? Cuz obviously he was under immense amount of pressure. Just being the Ohio State coach, that's gonna happen. Yeah. Every Ohio person understands that. Gotta win every game, yeah. Yeah, the job is gonna be difficult. It's all right. Yeah, and obviously that is, I don't think it's unique just to Ohio, but here I think it is vastly different than, I mean, it's every citizen in the state of Ohio. Is expecting the Buckeyes to win every single game. Every coach that has been here has won a national championship. Ryan, what have you done? What have you done?

39:31Pat McAfee:What have you done? Is all he was feeling. I think you guys had a team meeting or a player meeting or something, and it was like a gut check type situation from what I've been told. Ryan Day, kind of how he was being viewed and talked about. How did that kind of motivate you guys or generate your energy, and how was the relationship through playoffs with him? Because he was getting thrown under every bus in the state of Ohio. I think elementary school, junior high, high school buses, Greyhound buses yeah shorter buses longer buses he was getting thrown under every bus in Ohio how much was that a part of the whole story it was uh it was a big part of it man and like you know me obviously I don't have the same relationship that maybe a Jack Sawyer and a Mecca you know coming into the season had with him but coming out of it I feel like honestly I mean we all were in that thing together last year and you know Ryan Day like he he gave me a chance and I kind of think about, you know, what I owed to him.

40:25And, you know, when I sat down with him coming out of the transfer portal process and how he, you know, really took me in and wanted to make me a better player, like I felt like I owed him and I made sure, you know, I was like, man, I got to get back to this guy, man. Like he's given me so much, you know, he's given me this chance. Like I can't let him down. And, you know, we all obviously, you know, you don't want to listen to the outside noise and everybody says that, you know, like, don't go on social media, but we all, you have to, you know, you hear it. It's 2024. It's 2024. It, you know, it gets to you and you see it.

40:59That's true. Yeah. But, you know, you hear it and, you know, it pissed us off. You know, we didn't, I wouldn't say we used it as motivation, but, you know, it did, it put a little chip on our shoulder. And I think it gave us really the spark that we needed, like to come together. And that, like you said, that players only meeting that we had, it was just all of us players and Coach Day. And we hashed some things out. You know, guys said their piece. You know, it got real, you know, and there was no sensitivity about it. Everyone was just honest. They stated their case, and no one really got uptight about it.

41:34And I think – How did it come about? Did Coach Day bring it in? So, yeah, so the day after that, you know, after that day out here, we got together as a leadership council, and we talked, and we were like, hey, we got to get this group of guys together and talk about it and just lay everything out on the table. If anyone has any questions about how we did what we did on that day, what happened, why does this keep happening kind of deal, we wanted to hash all that stuff out. And we went into that room, and there were times where it got ugly. Guys are yelling at each other, and tempers flared. But at the end of it, we all came together hand-in-hand in prayer.

42:12And I feel like a moment like that is so defining for a team. Absolutely. A less mature group would have taken that and just, I mean, you know, but we had such a good group of guys that were all mature and, you know, motivated and didn't want that to be the way that we remembered. And that was what we kept talking about. Like, what's our legacy going to be? What do you want to be remembered for here at Ohio State? And, you know, we could use that last game to just crumble and make everything kind of fall on top of each other. But like at the end of the day, we were just like, man, we got to, we got to, we got to set the record straight.

42:46and go out here. And we knew the only way that we could make what we did right is by winning an national championship.

42:51Pat McAfee:Crazy that it was all still available for you as the entire state was kind of crumbling. There was still this magical opportunity that everybody is hunting for. That is literally the only thing that is on the top of the mountain. You guys have it forever. Congratulations. That is a wonderful thing. Tone, back at the Thunderdome, has a question for you. Yeah, Will, first and foremost, I love you. Just wanted to get that out there. Just want to say that. I love you too, Tone. Secondly, can you grow a beer? because you're giving me Big Ben vibes when I was watching you in practice and stuff like that.

43:20I got Big Ben vibes. And then thirdly, more importantly, how has this year's expectations changed if they have it all with the hand injury? Because I know that was a bummer and didn't get to see you in preseason, but has anything changed as far as your role or expectations for this season? You know, I think all along I was looking at this season as a developmental year, and I think we all kind of were with the Steelers. obviously you don't bring in Aaron Rodgers for no reason. He's a guy that's coming in to be the guy, at least for this year. And we don't know what it will look like going forward.

43:56But right now I'm going into this season saying I want to learn everything I possibly can from Aaron and just watch the way that he goes about his business. Obviously, like you said, Tone, it killed me that I couldn't be out there for the preseason. I felt like I was having a really good fall camp and wanted to kind of carry that into the preseason and show Steelers Nation what I was capable of. But obviously, you've got to trust the plan. And God didn't want me out there this preseason for what reason. I don't know why, but I've got to trust it and understand that this is all part of my development.

44:30And in the long term, in the grand scheme of things, I've just got to keep working and use this year as a developmental year. And on the facial hair note, I'm working on it. Really? I shaved yesterday. Can we get back in on that Buck? Can we get back in on that Buck? I shaved yesterday.

44:47Pat McAfee:The cameraman's name is Buck. He's from Canada. He's got great control of the stick. Looks good. Sure does. Clean shave. That's a little too close. But I went clean shaving this weekend. But hey, going forward, Tone, I'll think about you when I'm doing my thing. I appreciate that. You got a nice baby face, brother. I do. I think that was part of the entire thing. You're like super jovial baby face. But we saw you out there dancing with the boys. We saw you out there dancing with the boys whenever you were doing your thing. They loved you. New teammates I assume do as well. Go ahead, AJ. So Aaron Rodgers, obviously in the room with him, you get to see him on the field.

45:23I guess what is it really like watching him operate on the field? Like even in walkthroughs? We were there for one day, I was peeking out the window, watching your guys' walkthrough. I could just see his little, how he just bounces down the field. And boy, yeah, I'm sure he got everything. Especially when he's feeling good. You definitely know when he's feeling good. Oh yeah. Or if he's pissed off. Picking grass out of the ground. Yeah, so like what is it like I guess what's it been like to observe that not only meeting room But on the field just how he commands the huddle and kind of has it has everybody like all on the same page Yeah, I think that's a that's a great point I think the the biggest thing about Aaron that that I have been like amazed by and I feel like when you think about Aaron Rodgers Everyone talks about the arm strength and the arm talent and the ability to have that he has physically But nobody talks about what he's capable of up here up here and his his mental capacity for the game and the things that he's thinking about every single play, like just watching his process, is crazy.

46:14I mean, all the cadence operation that he does and just his knowledge of the game and the fronts and how that correlates to the pressures and the structures in the back end. I mean, everything that he talks about, it just makes sense. And he has taught me a ton and he's been super, super open. Even if he has a bad play at practice where he might be pissed off And, you know, if I ask him, hey, like, you know, what was your thought process there? Like, he'll come over to me no matter how pissed off he is, and he'll tell me. And he's very open with not just me, but, you know, Skyler and Mason and everybody else on the offense.

46:50He'll talk to a practice squad tight end the same that he talks to DK, you know. No, I heard he's. I swear. I mean, he's like, you know. That's all right, right? He's a good, no, he, I mean, he, he gets on everybody and he, he expects excellence and you know, he, he's demanding and he's a great leader. I've just, it's been great to just sit back and watch the way that he operates. And I've been learning from it and trying to pick his brain as much as I can.

47:17Pat McAfee:Yeah, smart. You're even doing a mimicking his motions on the field. It feels like you're watching his every move. Feels like the right guy to do that with, especially with your leadership style, brother, we got to watch that on display. A lot of alphas on that team, you know, that could have won one way. Instead of one to the other with you being the guy that guides the ship to a national championship. Now, on that note, Connor has a question for you. Yeah, thank goodness it went the utter way, Will, because it was nice to see you guys kind of just coast to a national championship. One of the guys on that team who's going to be playing tomorrow, Jeremiah Smith.

47:48What is it like seriously playing with a dude like that? And as you've been in training camp in these preseason games, do you ever look on the field and say like, oh, yeah, Jeremiah Smith's better than that guy, that guy that guy that guy and then get to dk metcalf and think like okay that's probably exactly what jeremiah smith is just an absolute freak of nature yeah it's uh it's a sight to behold man like watching number four play football uh you know both with the steelers and with the with the buckeyes um i mean they're both unbelievable players and they're very very comparable uh in a lot of ways um but yeah i mean jj is he's a he's a freak man and i was telling people before the season last year like this kid's gonna be one of the one of the best in the country as a freshman and they were all like you know we'll believe it when we see it and I mean I think everyone saw it pretty pretty loud and clear last year I mean he's he's unbelievable I mean he can do everything he's big he catches freaking everything every single ball you throw at him I mean I think when it's all said and done he could very very well be and I know it's saying a lot but he could be one of the best to ever do it but he's so talented and I'm excited to watch him ball out this week.

48:56Obviously, sad it's not me throwing the ball to him, but I'm excited to watch Julian too, man. I think those two are going to have a good connection and looking forward to it. What do you think about Julian? That's my guy, man. He's California cool. You know, he's got one of the best releases I've seen. Ball comes out pretty. Oh, it's pretty, man. It sure is. I mean, he can spin that thing and there's no doubt about that, but I'm excited to go out there and watch his, you know, his demeanor and the way that he leads these boys. Like that's when you really talk about being the quarterback of a football team, especially a football team like this, like that is one of the marquee things that you have to do is you got to lead those guys.

49:33You got to make sure that you're taking them from from point A to point B every every single game. And they're riding with you. And I think I'm excited to see that come out of him, you know, because I know he has it inside of him. And and I think he's been developing that all camp. And and I mean, he can physically like he's up there with with everyone. But I'm just excited to see him go out there and be the guy and lead these guys, man. I'm looking forward to it, man. Jules is a great kid. Is he tough? He's got to be tough. Oh, yeah. It's Ohio State.

49:59Pat McAfee:You got to be tough. They're running the little blow-up smashy thingy out here on the field. Oh, nice. I mean, they got, yep, yep, yep. Boom! Boom! Boom! Eat some! Eat some! Got some legs in the air. This is preparation for one-verse-three. This is Ohio. This is what it's all about. What perfect timing to cut to that. Ryan, great shot, Cuz. Really, really awesome stuff. Ty has a question, I think, to follow up on everything we're talking about with the quarterback. Yeah, Will, obviously, you know, Julian and you had massively different paths, you know, ahead of your first start. Have you talked to him at all in terms of, like, what can he expect on Saturday?

50:38I mean, your first game was against Akron, so it's a little bit different, you know, and you're not getting thrown right into the belly of the beast like he will against Texas. But have you talked to him? Have you given him any advice? And, you know, just like how much different was it for you putting on that Ohio State uniform for your first start? Yeah, it's obviously very different circumstances for me and him. But, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a football game, you know. And I told him and, you know, I texted him when, you know, when the news officially came out. And, you know, I stay in contact with him and with Lincoln and all the quarterbacks, really.

51:12I try to. But the thing that I told him is, man, there's not a lot of people that understand what we're going through as being the Ohio State quarterback. So I just said, if you ever need to talk to me about anything, just let me know, just like a lot of the guys ahead of me did for me. And it's a different place, Ohio State being the guy, being the quarterback. There's a lot of eyes, there's a lot of pressure, but you can't treat it like that. You got to just treat it like it's another game. And, you know, obviously this being his first collegiate start, collegiate game, you know, it's a big one.

51:44But, you know, I know that he has it in him and that, you know, he got to watch us go on that whole run last year. And he was a part of it. So he got to see really big games. So I'm excited to see him go out there and take the step, you know, with him actually doing it. Because I know he's a dude, man. He's a stud. No, he's got a lot of weapons at his disposal. He's too tall.

52:03Pat McAfee:He's too tall, isn't he? Who, me? I was just looking at this shot here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you guys are kind of Siciliano-ing AJ a little bit. Sorry, AJ. I'm okay with that. I'm okay. I'm perfect size. My forehead would go right into their chin. That's what I'm doing. My kids call me short all the time like this exact height I wanted to be. Well, man wins. Hey, that was a big thing I was talking about whenever it was going through the draft thing. Yeah. By the way, shout out to you thrown at the hotel late at night in Indianapolis. Yeah. Somebody out of the blue called and said that. Who? Like, yo, this guy's out in the middle of a parking lot, middle of the night, getting a throwing session in.

52:39Pat McAfee:Yeah, shout out to that guy. Out of the blue, you say. Who was it? Just out of the blue was a very interesting way to put it. Who was it? Well, what I'm saying is it was not like a – I didn't follow up and say, like, hey, if you see anything downtown, let me know.

52:58Pat McAfee:It came out of nowhere is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I got attacked for lying about you. So I want to let you know, like, I was a big supporter of yours through the whole draft process because I didn't think you were getting enough love from what we watched with the playoff run. And we were first on the CJ Stroud stuff. Not the first, but we saw CJ Stroud play, and we were like, that's a Sunday guy right there, like right in front of our eyes. I've had the opportunity with my position to stand on the sidelines of a lot of football games. Oh, yeah. Okay, so the simulcast, I'm getting a chance to see a lot of positions that I've been in before.

53:32Pat McAfee:And like your size was the big thing, I thought. Yeah. You're fucking gigantic. You can move and then your leadership. I hope it all works out. I hope the thumb gets better. I like that he came in for a really strong dap here with me. Oh yeah. So we're not worried about that, right? We're all good, man. It's, you know, I'm back to throwing this week. So it's feeling good going in the right direction. But I really appreciate you guys, man. Man, seriously, I saw all the love and I do appreciate you guys, man. You could have said something. I was getting murdered. Yeah, thanks a lot. I should have spoke up.

54:01Pat McAfee:I was getting murdered out here. I was just letting you take it, man. I should have spoke up. Actually, it's the reason why I like you. It's because you did, yeah. Hey, listen, I'm saying there's no reason to add any spotlight, which is what I appreciate about you. You're a superstar, you're a national champion, and you're a cool dude. And I think your story is an inspiring one, and I can't wait to see what you write for your professional career. Are you getting celebrated here this weekend? Not that I know of. I think we kind of did that for the spring game when we had all our rings given out and all that because I know they want to focus on this year and beating the Longhorns.

54:34Pat McAfee:Oh, you're talking about, hey, new team. This team hasn't won anything. Don't be a distraction, Will. Please don't. Stay out the way. Ladies and gentlemen, national champion, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Will Hart. Hey, Will. Appreciate you guys, man. Thanks for having me on, fellas. Easy on that hand. Easy on that hand. I'm just ranking on it pretty good. No reaction. Yeah. I just want in on it. He looks like he's a bowler, you know? Yeah, it looks cool like Rick Kemmore. Oh, Pat, you know what he should do? He should go live in Seven's basement like Sid lived in Mario's basement. Hey, Will.

55:07Pat McAfee:Tone says you should live in Roethlisberger's basement like Sidney Crosby did with Mario. Yeah, it's the nicest basement I've ever seen. He's in, actually, I think. Smart. He likes it. Why doesn't Seven do that for a city, by the way? He would. I think he would. Well, Spence might be living down there. Yeah, that's a good point. You got a chef, too. That chef's really good. Spank, obviously awesome. That is the nicest basement I have ever seen. AJ, that guy won you guys a national championship there. I like that he feels like he's at home because, boy, for a little bit last year, that was not the case at all.

55:41Pat McAfee:This entire Ohio State team was getting run out of the state of Ohio, and then they win a national championship, and it's like, thank you for your service. And then to his point, hey, Ryan Day, that means nothing right now. That is kind of how I feel like every school feels, but definitely this school. Yeah, definitely. It's, yeah, what is it to where when you win, it's so people almost get, they get more anxious, more nervous when it comes to like the coaching staff. And they want to make sure you don't let your foot off the gas and you continue and don't get comfortable, all that stuff. That's what college football is though.

56:10It's a great situation to be in. Hey, let's not get complacent. We just won the national championship. That's all.

56:16Pat McAfee:Well, you welling. I'm just saying, well, just because to AJ's point, like Mack Brown talked about at Texas, towards the end, even though they were winning a ton, it doesn't become fun to win. It just becomes a relief, and I'm not saying Ohio State's there just yet. I do have a question for you two. Why does Tabiddle sound like such shit? Because whatever's being played in your background sounds terrible. Bunch of dying ducks. They're just warming up, pal. They're just all warming up, scattered throughout. Did they lose it? People are saying. There's individual horns all over the place, you know, like right there, just random horn players around the stadium.

56:53Pat McAfee:It has been wild. We are thankful and lucky to be here. The sun's shining directly on our backs. Hour two on the other side.

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58:06Pat McAfee:Football. He is amazing and that man is a national champion head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, Ryan Day. Coach, the boys back in the Thunderdome, both the toxic tables at Ty Schmidt and at Boston Conner and one half of the hammer. Cowboys AP tone, we're thankful. Hey, we thought he hated us. Is that not accurate? Yeah, very accurate. Yeah, now we don't have to hate him. Love you guys. We want to let you know that we are that way, though. That is how we operate. We always will. It's not – I think it's a good trait, but a lot of people view it as not great. And it's probably put me – exactly.

58:47Pat McAfee:It's like the Buckeyes last season. So we thought you hated us, so we in return had to hate you. Very thankful that you don't hate us because we did not want to hate you. Strictly because what you have done here and what you've had to battle through – Now, granted, I'm just getting baptized in college football over the last five years. I understand the state of Ohio has loved the Buckeyes for a very long time. But what we have watched you have to go through with the success that you've had and then the failures that have happened and then the reaction and the criticism and how it felt like the entire state was on fire and then you were able to lead the boys to get a national championship.

59:18Pat McAfee:It's like you should be commended. You are somebody that we like. You are a dog. You need to know that. And we just want to officially say, because we didn't get a chance to interview him after the national championship, if you do recall, three requests. Congratulations dude. Congratulations from all of us. Thank you. I'm glad I'm here and no, I love you guys. You guys are unbelievable and you're great for the sport and just the positivity that you guys bring every day and just pumping up the game. It's something we all respect here in Columbus. You don't have to say that. Let's talk about everything I mentioned.

59:50Pat McAfee:It got loud and I know you're not supposed to listen to the press clippings or hear what's outside, but in Ohio, I think it's everywhere. So you had to have heard it. Obviously, family's involved. There's everything. Echo real loud. Whenever you're trying to motivate the boys, how much of it is there like a, why do I dedicate so much time for this fan base that literally is trying to run me out of town any time we take one misstep? Was there any of that thought, or how do you kind of stay focused while it's getting real loud and negative outside? I mean, that's part of the job. I remember during the press conference when Urban kind of handed the whistle over to me, and I said, you've got to win the rivalry game, then you've got to win every game after that.

1:00:27That's how it works at Ohio State. And that's the expectations. And so along the way, there's going to be things that are difficult, and you've got to work through those. And if you're going to let it crumble you or fall apart, then you're not going to make it. And so this job is for tough people who can handle it. And so last year I think was a great example of that. But when you talk about the fan base, these people love Ohio State. Love it. And there's a responsibility that we have. And it's bigger than any one person, any one player, any one coach. and the guys understand that and they understand what comes with that and when we lose a game around here it's not good you got to figure it out because there's a lot riding on every single game and that's that's how it works and you know but if but if you're willing to stick together tough times aren't gonna last but tough people do and that's that's something that we learned last

1:01:12Pat McAfee:year for with our guys I love to watch that I love to hear that in the run you guys went on we had a chance to be on the sideline for all of it your team was obviously together will Howard just chit-chatted about the players only meeting and you and how it got a little ugly in there for a little bit feels like people can come together after there is a little bit of a uh tussle i'll say or some disagreements did you know your team had the ability to win the national championship still at that moment in that meeting was it like this is good for the boys to kind of get after it and air out all the grievances like when did you know the team could go and maybe get to the top of the mountain well when we got done with that game i mean there's no there's no reason we should have lost that game we knew it and coming out of it it was like all right are you going to focus on the results or where you are in the process and identifying what has to get fixed because at the of the day we can sit there and complain about what happened or sit back and look at that game and say okay now you know let it beat you twice can't do that got to learn from it and figure out what the things are that we need to get fixed it was like in the oregon game and we got some things fixed in that oregon game and then we had to sort some some things out with their offensive line and when you lose simmons you know who was a first round draft pick at left tackle and then you have to move donovan out and then two weeks earlier now you're losing a remington award winner at center and and there was a lot going on right there and and we we knew we had to make some changes to get some things fixed if we were going to make the run that we went on.

1:02:28But then, you know, the last time we were in the stadium against Tennessee, you know, our backs were against the wall. And we felt like coming out of that game, if we could play the way we played in that game, then there wasn't anybody in the country that was going to beat us.

1:02:38Pat McAfee:Nico Iamaleava cracked three helmets. I think your defense is doing A-OK in that particular game. What was it, negative 55 degrees down here too? Love that the North got a big-time win. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, Coach, I actually mentioned the Tennessee pregame to you before we got on air here. So Pat and I and the boys were all standing on the sidelines. Jack Sawyer's down here talking to every Tennessee player walking off the field. There's a couple ladies that were saying some very hurtful things to the Tennessee players. But it was tasteful but hurtful. I would hurt your feelings. She's yelling, you don't even look like you lift.

1:03:11What, are you the JV team? She had some good stuff. But then. Ohio. Ohio. Yeah, yeah. Much, yeah, much deeper than that. But have you been a part of a pregame that felt that? I don't know what I, I don't even know how to describe what it felt. Like just so much, it was just like, hey, these dudes are ready. Like everybody was ready on the sideline, I felt like. And it felt like the game was already over before it started. Yeah, hard to explain when you think about a playoff game in Ohio Stadium. You think about having cold weather. You think about, you know, being in the middle of December. And you just think about a rowdy crowd and everything that would come with that.

1:03:44And, you know, for all of us, whether it was the fans or, you know, alums or players or coaches, like our backs were against the wall there. and we just we had that mentality right out of the gate and you know there was a decent amount of orange here in this the stadium and like you know game day they took over game day i just want

1:04:00Pat McAfee:to let you know i was coming out ready to do the whole oh h oh oh i was ready to do all that and say it was rocky top brother orange everywhere i was a little tired because we came from notre dam the night before it was freezing ass cold and it was a big moment but there was tennessee had invaded almost that's what it felt like in the morning it felt like that in the morning And then we got in here. It wasn't as prevalent as there certainly was. But in the morning, it felt like this is going to be a volunteer's home game in the horseshoe. We started talking shit to him very loudly. Buckeyes fans showed up.

1:04:28I stayed calm the whole time, though, Coach. In the moment, I was like, it doesn't matter. Just kickoff's in 10 hours. We'll be all right. The fans will be here when it matters.

1:04:34Pat McAfee:And they were. But this place was rocking that night. It was rocking. And I think it was a good moment between your team and the fans, I think. Don't you think so? Yeah, no question. And a lot of people came up to me and say that's one of their favorite games that they've been a part of, just the atmosphere and everything that came with it and it just kick-started us you know after you win that game you're going to the rose bowl and it's like okay yeah we got we got three more games we've got to win here we got to go on this run and it it allowed us some confidence coming out of the game but it was good to see us you know respond that way and so now you know the next game that we're here we're playing texas and so you think about the way we we ended last season with some of these monster games and here we are you know about to kick it off against a great team here and and you know another monster game to start the season one verse three we love that your team's doing it because this is obviously a big part of the conversation is playing in these big games okay because the schedule the record the losses obviously you guys were right in the middle of that the first year with the expanded college football playoff let's talk about the young buck you got playing quarterback here obviously not young been around has experienced things we talked to will howard he was on the sideline in a massive piece of that playoff run what are our expectations what should we see guy can spin it i'm watching these highlights these Balls are coming out great.

1:05:42Pat McAfee:What is your expectation and what are you telling him before he goes out there? Well, the thing that I've said to him and I've really said to our team is that there's no expectation other than winning the game. Because when you go into a first start like this as a quarterback or any position, especially a game like this, it's easy to start saying, well, you know, I need to throw for this many touchdowns or have this many tackles or whatever it might be. And then all of a sudden when the game doesn't go the way you expect, you can find yourself kind of getting distracted. That can't be the case here.

1:06:05You know, we have to figure out a way to win the game. That's it. You've got to play really, really hard. But for him, you know, he's got to trust what he does every day in practice. He got a chance to see Will lead last year and see his command in the huddle and how he handled those types of things. And every day he's growing more and more. Once we named him a starter, I feel like he's picked up some momentum. So he's got to go play in the game. This is going to be his first start ever at Ohio State.

1:06:27Pat McAfee:Against Texas week one? I mean, how about that? Welcome to Ohio State. But this is why you come to Ohio State. This is why you come into the horseshoe and playing games like this. And so it's going to be a hell of a start. Yeah, we're very excited about it as college football fans. He's got a new weapon. Obviously, everybody's a new weapon for him because it's the first time starting. But there's a tight end that you guys have got. Go ahead, Tone. Yeah, Coach, I wanted to ask you about Max Clare because you obviously brought him in from Purdue. You brought in a DN from North Carolina. Some teams use the portal because they need to.

1:06:56I don't know if the Ohio State needs to. So how do you guys feel like – how do you decide what positions you want to supplement and what guys are right for a team that is – you recruit so well, you're already loaded. So how do you decide what guys are right and what positions are right? Well, I think the first thing is now more than ever, you have to recruit really well and then retain the guys that you're developing. Because if not every year, the turnover just is too much to handle. And so if you want to sustain a culture, it all starts with high school recruiting. But along the way, the transfer portal can also take from you.

1:07:31So if you look at last year, we got done with our game on January 20th. for the the portal was open for five days it wasn't open for anybody else other than us in notre dame and you know we lost seven guys in the portal in that in that that stretch right there and so we have to replace those holes so when you look at uh the guys that we've had over the years it's it's to replace holes that are in our roster and so we hand select those guys and first off make sure they fit our culture because that's the most important thing and then obviously if they can help

1:07:57Pat McAfee:us on the field let's talk about another guy you stole from west virginia yeah good player yeah Great player. Well, he's gotten bigger. He's gotten stronger. He's in great shape. I'm just telling you. Best shape of his life. He's doing a great job, man. He's excited to play in this game. I think for him coming in, there was a lot to adjust for him in understanding exactly how we do things here. But he was a very good player at West Virginia, and I'm excited to see him run tomorrow. Yeah, CJ's a dog. It was very nice to watch him, and I'm actually kind of proud of him. Yeah, he won and got good luck.

1:08:31Pat McAfee:You know, like it is a great time to be here in Columbus. I think everybody understands that. It is crazy you're playing Texas tomorrow to start the season. Ty has a question for you. Yeah, Coach, obviously you're no stranger to the pomp and circumstance of a massive game, you know, with game day being there and all that kind of stuff. You've had those experiences several times at the Horseshoe. But how excited are you to be able to throw your team into the fire week one against the number one ranked team in the nation and kind of see what they're made of? And on the flip side, how much can you actually learn about your team from a week one game like this?

1:09:07Yeah, I'm extremely excited to play in this game. I mean, Texas is excellent. They're super talented. They're very well coached. I think Sark does a great job. I think their coaches do a great job. Certainly, Arch is a tremendous player, and they have great players in all three phases. But for us, week one, to get some real feedback on where we are to kind of start our journey into this season is going to be tremendous. And to have this game at home, you know, the atmosphere is going to be crazy. And a noon kickoff, you know, I just think that for our fans to get back together again early in the season for a game like this is going to be tremendous.

1:09:41And it's going to give our team a reference point, a younger team. You know, when you look at all the guys we lost last year, a lot of guys are going to be doing it for the first time here tomorrow. But it's going to give them a reference point as they move throughout the season.

1:09:52Pat McAfee:Yeah, and it's got to feel good that these types of games are going to be possible going forward for teams. because it feels like college football playoff is understanding that this is good for the sport for you guys to battle early. So it doesn't mean season's over here after week one. It's going to feel like it here. You know. You won a national championship. I don't care is what some Ohio guy is going to say. Saturday night, if you guys don't get the dub, you've become noon kings. You certainly have. This place is going to be insane, I would assume, tomorrow. That's all expectation. Tomorrow is going to be absolutely insane.

1:10:22Pat McAfee:It'll be rocking. Texas travels. Yeah, no, they got a great fan base, great team. It's gonna be it's just an awesome day for college football. And here we go. We're about 24 hours out. Let's talk about it. Coach Corso's last game day. Yeah. Thoughts on that as well? Yeah, just because you're gonna be on the show, which is awesome. We're very thankful you're coming through. Of course. But it's gonna be a celebration of a guy who really changed the shape in the face of college ball and certainly college game day. Yeah, I think when when it's all said and done, we all want to have an impact and Lee Corso's had an impact not only as a coach and the players and the coaches that he was around but then also here you know on game day and espn and what he's done and just brought so much enjoyment and you know celebration to the sport and and again another guy who's very positive about builds people up and you know in day and age where it's easy to rip people down and tear people down and be negative this is not somebody who's done that he's built people up and he certainly made an impact as a coach in the game but but then actually as an ambassador later on in his life and just done so many so many great He's got a lot of respect for everybody here.

1:11:21Pat McAfee:Yeah, I think everybody I think that's been very evident Very rarely is the whole world unified in an opinion. It feels like everybody's behind coach Corso, right? It's gonna be electric tomorrow I got a little bit of Insight on what's happening tomorrow. It's gonna be electrifying tomorrow as we celebrate the shit out of him Yeah, and then between now and then any hobbies any hobbies. What is I know your big tennis guy, right? I Go over there. I just actually I wonder what's your what's your opinion on pickleball? I hear the tennis players hate pickleball people. No, pickleball's great. Okay.

1:11:51Yeah, pickleball's great. You're a tennis player? So the tennis facility is right across the street, and Ty Tucker, who's an unbelievable coach, during COVID, he started inviting me over there. And so for about 30 minutes, about two or three times a week, I go over there and just hammer the tennis ball. Great exercise, right? Unbelievable. And the team's really good. I mean, they hammer in the ball 80, 100, 120 miles an hour and just getting after it for about a half hour. It's a great workout. Come back in, and you're in a better headspace when you come back.

1:12:16Pat McAfee:It's quite a range, 80 to 120 miles an hour. I feel like an off-speed pitch. These guys hammer the ball. I mean, you watch the U.S. Open, you see how hard they hit the ball. It's unbelievable. You fight anybody over there? Like we're seeing the two women in the... Oh, yeah. You get any beef? You get any beef in it? There's no beef going on over there. All right, all right. Something to think about. Congrats to you on becoming a national champion. And let's remember, that means nothing. Ain't that right, boys? Yeah, exactly right. That means nothing, coach. Means nothing. Everybody's at the bottom of the mountain.

1:12:46Pat McAfee:I think you should take in that you were the way you won how you won, the circumstance in which you won I hope you cherish that and realize how special it is for the rest of your life and good luck trying to do it again as it starts tomorrow against Texas you're the man, thank you for stopping by thank you for not hating us and also, thank you for the hoodies we got a couple hoodies we can't be bought that easily, coach I can whoa, whoa, whoa Conman, I think you wear size 12 as well right yeah all right fine if they're shoes we can be bought that easily yeah yeah i'm a size 12 and these bad boys were brought in here and uh oh yeah yeah yeah i think national championship right there yeah i think maybe we can be purchased you know oh it's baby a couple more a couple more actual hoodies right yeah um there's there's multiple here there's multiple here we are very thankful we are happy you don't hate us all right i think no seriously especially because you're a new hampshire guy very serious yeah new hampshire's lived for your life we liked you a lot that's right yeah no no no i'll i'll love here and um i'd love to come on the show as many times as i can guys appreciate you we appreciate you good luck ladies and gentlemen national champion ryan that was very cool of you to do that thank you thank you really cool for those guys to keep playing too.

1:14:11It sounds great.

1:14:12Pat McAfee:Hey, these horns playing over you, I think we need to do a little bit of a check in the totem pole. Just a little heads up. Just something to think about. We don't want to start any more problems. That's a Biddle culture. We don't want to start any more problems. We don't want to start any more problems. That is the problem. Tobittle thinks they're bigger than the head coach of the football team. They have to have that type of moxie that would dot the fucking eye out here. 118 on a Friday. They're in the upper bowl practicing. You kind of have to respect it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Now, granted, could it?

1:14:42Pat McAfee:Nothing. Could we do it at 11-18? What was it? No, we don't have. Nobody should be stopping anything for us. So that is first and foremost. Sure. Whatever they need to do to get ready for tomorrow, that's cool. That is an interesting thing to do. And it sounds pretty shite. It sounds incredibly shite. They might be tuning their instruments. It may be tuning them, I think. I don't think they're trying to play a little number. They're not trying to play the hits. Yeah, but do they know a lot of people are hearing it? Like that is the, maybe there's a communication. A lot of people are hearing it, and it does not sound up to Biddle's standards because we've got individual solo performances happening in 45 different places throughout the horseshoe here.

1:15:18Pat McAfee:I think it's going to be tough to be on the same page. They need somebody in the, yeah, where's the mic, brother? Where's that guy? Yeah, keeping them all on the same page. That's a big horn right there. I don't know what that one is. That's a big horn. Carry that thing around. They're doing the stairs. Solo tuba. We missed him. Sorry, Ryan. Solo tuba. All right, before Coach Saban joins us, which is going to be awesome, cannot wait to chat with him again. That was a really cool thing last year, getting a chance to just watch Saban be Saban. He's one of the goats, you know. So whenever you get the chance to watch a goat, talk a goat, learn from a goat, it's like you've got to do that.

1:15:56Pat McAfee:He was so cool to us last year. Don't you think, boys? He was way too cool to us. Too cool. And the stuff that he was saying, like the amount of game he was just giving was incredible. I mean, of course, the Vanderbilt situation happened, but that's going to happen. Awesome. And, yeah, still, it made it even cooler. But just hearing Saban talk like ball, it's an honor. It's like Belichick. And he also pretended to like us other guys at dinner when we went out with him. Good points. Yeah. Yeah. And in Ireland, didn't he say, you guys ask good questions? He did, actually. Yeah. Did he say that? Football guys.

1:16:27Pat McAfee:He respects us. Yeah. He saw you drinking beers, and then he was like, it's crazy because the other guys are kind of, they even ask good questions. And that's you guys, right? Yeah, we're the other guys. And that's the cool part. You guys are the other guys? I didn't know that you guys were the other guys. In this situation, we are the other guys. We're the Bugle Boys. We're the other guys. It's like when you and AJ and D-Bud are like, when we were in the locker room, even though the other guys weren't in the locker room, there's still a lot to talk about. It's like, thank you guys for allowing us to be the other guys.

1:16:58Yeah.

1:16:59Pat McAfee:So is every day another day then if you guys are the otter guys because i i didn't know that that was what you guys were going yeah you gotta wake up every morning and treat it as another day yeah but but you you see what's going on here age do you see what's happening here do you understand what's going on a little bit does stanford steve have any idea yes he definitely impact that he has on this show we love stanford steve he's the man we just hope that he loves us don't we yeah yes from one another guy to another guy we asked him yet did you ask this morning by chance He said he didn't expect the graphic Yeah We saw that he didn't expect it Like you always say Played the hand a little too hard A little too firm Too close to the sun You know when we overdo it It's always the problem We thought it might be a chance It's like Louis Hall's the second time We had it We had the moment and then we had well we got a one-on-one with marcus freeman and ryan day need to bring in national championship need to barge in blue holtz yeah ty actually had to rush that mask on too because we're late we almost the universe almost told us not to do it like hey not enough time almost no hey we will i think i talked to you shortly before you think we should do it i'm like yeah why not it seems like a great time yeah cfp gives us time to sit with the coaches how are you going to spend it.

1:18:25Pat McAfee:Mask now. I mean, that's something you look back on no matter forever. And it's like, that was one of the most ridiculous things probably that's ever happened is roll of the holes. Marcus Freeman knows what's going on. I can't believe this is happening. We're at the National Championship right now. Yeah, that's on us. We're learning as we go. Speaking of learning as we go, we haven't talked about a lot of things that have happened around the NFL that aren't just Michael Parsons. Michael, sorry. Michael Parsons, says Jerry Jones. to the Green Bay Packers. Conman, what are some other headlines that we need to hit?

1:18:57Pat McAfee:Vrabel's handling business up there, huh? Yeah, Vrabel's handling business. Very weird. Jabril Peppers, breaking news, was released today from New England. This was the last captain, actually, remaining from the 2024 New England Patriots. I was still on the team, so now 2025 New England Patriots will have brand new captains. Very interesting. We'll see what happens. Definitely was one of the leaders in New England and was one of our best players. This was stunning to me, especially because all the trade rumors with the Patriots that were going around when it came to, you know, Terry McLaurin or Trey Hendrickson.

1:19:31Jabril Peppers was never a player that was kind of up in the air for that. So that's what's going on in New England and Vrabel's making his turnover. Who knows what we'll see happening. The other thing in New England, you could argue, is the new NFL-Nike rivalries jerseys. This kind of took the internet by storm a little bit last night. Yesterday, NFC West, AFC East, they got all their new jerseys. That should be sweet. Something that we really haven't seen as far lately in the NFL, which I think some people might be worried about, would be the Las Vegas Raiders only announced three captains. Now, I thought you had to have seven captains to have a good football team.

1:20:16No, no, no. The Raiders only have three. It's defense, offense, special teams. I'm worried there might not be as much leadership in Vegas as they might want to for Pete Carroll and the boys. I love that there's only three.

1:20:30Pat McAfee:They're all three, I think, in their minds, the best in the world. Cole is the best punter in the world right now, in his mind. He's representing the special teams. Max Crosby thinks he's the best defensive end in the world. He's clearly the leader of that defense, as is Cole and the special teams. and Geno Smith with Pete Carroll had the best offense in the NFL. He's thinking he's the best in the world. And I like that Pete Carroll says these three are our leaders by far. We only need three Cs. That's old school. They'll probably have a week-to-week one, if I had to guess, where there'll be a rotating cast.

1:20:59Pat McAfee:But I think it's good that there's only three. They know who's who as opposed to seven captains.

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1:22:09Pat McAfee:Joining us now is a man who knows leadership better than anybody on Earth. Ladies and gentlemen, a man who's won 1 ,000 national championships and now is the man on college game day, our friend, Coach Saban. Yeah, Coach! Thanks, Pat. Good to be here, man. It's great to see you. How was the off season? It was great. It was great. I miss some of my partners here and the team, especially you. Well, we miss you as well. You were talked about a lot in the Thunderdome. The boys and I have such a high regard for you, not only because of what you've accomplished, but how you've transitioned into speaking into microphones has been flawless.

1:22:44Pat McAfee:You need to know that. You think that this is just easy, I think, because you've been great at it. You're fucking great for football. Is that not right, boys? Yeah, yes. Without a doubt. Huge. No questions. You are great for football. So I appreciate the fact that we get to talk to you, and I guess we'll make the announcement now. Coach Saban will be joining us every single Friday. Yeah. Yeah! I'm glad to do it, man. Yeah, you're great for football though. So - Glad to be here. Okay, let's talk about this season. We got Texas, Ohio State to kick this thing off. Three top 10 matchups in the first weekend.

1:23:16Pat McAfee:How do you feel about that potentially becoming a thing going forward? And what should we expect from these teams that are ranked very high in your eyes? Well, you know, first of all, I think it's great that we have games like this and I wish we had them every week. I wish that, you know, some way somebody could control the schedule a little bit that we had some inter-conference games and the best games, so it's great for the fan experience. You know, when it comes to this season, I mean, this is one of the most difficult seasons to really predict, you know, who's going to do what, especially after the first few teams, because there's so many changes on rosters.

1:23:50There's so many quarterback change in teams, and who's going to fit in the best? Where's the leadership, the chemistry going to come from? How are they going to fit in with the players that they have? what's the production going to be? Hard to figure out.

1:24:02Pat McAfee:How do you feel about quarterbacks going to be, now granted Sane's been here for a little bit, starts with you. Arch has been there for a few years, that's good, but there's a lot of teams that got brand new quarterbacks. Obviously we've seen it go in one particular direction with that Florida State. Whenever they have DJ Uyunglele, it doesn't work out, they go down. Will Howard comes here, they go up. How do you feel about the new quarterback coming in, maybe for a year, just to see if the good team can maybe win an Addy? Well, you know, I think it's all about the guy. You know, if the guy's got maturity and leadership and the team's going to sort of respond to him, that's a big thing.

1:24:36But also maturity to me is the definition of can you stay focused on the right stuff? You know, and as a competitor, you've got to be able to stay focused on the right stuff, especially a quarterback because you've got the ball. You're distributing the ball every play. So it's important that you can gain the respect of your team by making good choices and decisions and communicating well with the team.

1:24:56Pat McAfee:Do you miss it? It was reported like four times you're going back to coaching this whole season. You know what, and that came out of nowhere. I mean, Miss Terry said, where did that come from? I mean, she wouldn't let me do it, number one. I've never thought about doing it, number two. And I don't know how somebody could just come up with this out of thin air. Now you're running a government arm too, remember that? What was that boy, Nick Saban's going to head up the new college football committee? Yep. Commission. Yeah, the commission, you remember that? Congratulations. Hey, thank you for the work, coach.

1:25:29And you know, I didn't know anything about that either. And Miss Terry sees it on, I don't know, the internet somewhere and she says, why didn't you tell me about this? Tell you about what? I didn't know anything about it.

1:25:40Pat McAfee:Oh, no, the internet's getting you some shit at home. I love that. You would be the right guy for the job, which is why it went so viral. Because as soon as they said, Coach Saban's gonna run a college football commission with the government, everybody's like, yes, he's the right guy. So everybody was pumped that it was massive amount of work massive amount of work to do it all now Obviously you're gonna be an ear you will certainly help I feel like you love college football want to see it succeed You're still in the Alabama building I think on a weekly basis or daily basis who knows what your schedule is, but I saw you speaking to them You're still very much involved in college football want to see the best for college football You're not gonna be running the Commission But are you getting ideas run by you?

1:26:17Pat McAfee:Are you a part of what the future of this thing looks like because the game I think is immaculate and that's all anybody wants to kind of keep pure. Yeah, and you know, I'm very much committed to it in every way. And I would be a part of a commission, if it was a real commission created by the government that was actually going to enforce some rules and regulations and guidelines that would help the game and promote the players in the game. I'm all for players making money, but you know, you need some guidelines relative to competition and creating some parity in the league. I mean, I mean, every competitive venue has it.

1:26:52I'm all for players, but I am really all for college football. There's so much enthusiasm, so much interest in college football. And it's still pure in a way. And sometimes we can't let that purity sort of leave what it has always been.

1:27:09Pat McAfee:Yeah, I love college football. The environment, it's what we have to represent America whenever you talk about best fanhoods. Like over in Europe, they got the hooligans. They're crazy. Gumpy was actually over there in Spain experiencing. I was over there as a young lad watching the game. We're talking about flares being shot off in the crowd. Like they are chanting, going insane. America's representation, college football fans. And we got a great venue here for tomorrow to kind of kick off this incredible season. Go ahead, AJ. Yeah, coach, tomorrow with these quarterbacks, we always hear the cliche, what do you do to a young, inexperienced guy?

1:27:42Oh, heat him up, move him off the spot, try to throw some pressure at him. I guess if you had if you have a young like in a say inexperienced quarterback How do you get them think about every other position like we get all jacked up and you get excited you? You're all your adrenaline is going go out and hit somebody as a quarterback. It's kind of the opposite How do I how do I hone it in and kind of dial in all of this energy? I guess What do you tell a young quarterback going into games like this? Well, I think the most important thing is you got to play one play at a time and you can't let a bad play affect you But you know, I always try to tell our quarterbacks.

1:28:12They all want to make plays They all talk about making plays making plays making plays. I said how about eliminating the bad place? You know if we don't have drive-stopping mistakes whether it's a sack We shouldn't have taken whether it's a turnover that we shouldn't have had because the number one thing for a quarterback to me is Can identify what the defense is doing? Can I communicate it to my teammates and once I get the ball in my hands? Can I execute with good judgment and decision-making and accuracy with the ball for throwing it or handing it off or whatever it is? So I think those things are really really important to stay focused on and there's so much noise You know I call it rat poison out there relative to these quarterbacks at these kind of programs That that makes it even more difficult for these guys to stay focused on the right stuff Modern day.

1:28:59Pat McAfee:Will Howard actually admitted it to us at which every player. It's not really an admission at this point He was like we're told not to read the stuff, but it's impossible like it nowadays. It's impossible It's literally everywhere. Have to have a very mentally tough quarterback to lead the team. Tone has a question for you about another quarterback. Yeah, Coach. Obviously, it's year two for Kalen DeBoer, and he brought in his OC, Ryan Grubb, to be back this year. But obviously, the biggest question right now is Ty Simpson, who's a new quarterback who obviously you know well. I saw an article recently about how you called, and you were talking to his dad, who's also a head coach.

1:29:31Like, hey, Ty needs to stay here when he gets to play here. Things can be great with him. What do we need to know about Ty Simpson that we don't know the guy and then also the player on the field? Yeah, well, I think Ty is a great young man who has – and I have all the respect in the world for these guys that stay in a program for three years, develop, wait their turn, and I think that's the thing that Ty has done extremely well. There's so many of these guys that grow up now being outcome-oriented, You know, and they're always looking at results. You know, how many passes did I complete? How many touchdowns did I have?

1:30:08And then they create these expectations for themselves. And when they don't live up to them, they get frustrated very easily. And that body language is not good for a quarterback. It's not good for a team. So that's the big thing that Ty's had to sort of work his way through is, you know, not get affected by a bad play. Stay focused on the next play because he's got all the talent in the world. He's got legs that are real. He's a very accurate passer. He's a good decision maker. He's smart. He's a good leader. So it'll be interesting to see how he can maintain the consistency and performance that defines success by not getting affected by ups and downs in a game.

1:30:43Pat McAfee:Do you think that there's going to be any quarterback changes early? Like how long do you think these great teams who have new quarterbacks are giving them a leash? What do you think? Well, I think it depends on who the next guy is. I think it depends a lot on who the next guy is. You know, I mean, sometimes if you have a young guy that you really have a lot of confidence in, that you think he may not be ready, kind of like the Tua-Jalen Hurts thing that we went through a few years ago. You know, we kept playing, you know, Tua thinking that one of these days he's going to be ready. And he actually went and was ready in the national championship.

1:31:19But that was the plan. Yeah, it worked out. We were trying to bring that guy along. and you know Jalen was struggling a little bit toward the end of the season beat up a little bit and all that so uh if you can bring a guy along and you have a really good player behind your quarterback then you can afford to have a little bit of a short leash if you think it's not um the team's not moving in the right direction there's a lot of difficult decisions that are

1:31:42Pat McAfee:made it feels like nowadays college football a little bit more like pro football than it's ever been and if you have some pro football experience it might help you uh ty has a question for you Yeah, Coach, for the last eight months to a year, however long it's been, everyone's got to weigh in on Bill Belichick in North Carolina and have an opinion about whatever. We had Michael Lombardi on yesterday, and he said that they had a couple conversations with you, reached out with you just for advice or whatever the case may be. Now that we're a couple days ahead of them actually taking the field and we're going to see the product on the field, what are your expectations for this North Carolina football team?

1:32:20and do you think the whole situation will feel different to Bill or is coaching ultimately just coaching? No, I think coaching is coaching, but I do think there's some what I would call operational differences, you know, in college. I mean, just take the sidelines, for instance. You've got 45 guys on the sidelines in the NFL. You know, in college you could have 100. So that changes a lot of how do you manage that? How does it affect you? How does it impact you? But that's just a sort of a stupid operational.

1:32:52Pat McAfee:Oh my God, it sounds like you hate how much conjecture is around. Yep, congestion on the side. I made certain guys stand behind the bench because I hated the traffic on the sidelines. But my point is this, they've got 70 new players at North Carolina on their roster. You know, Bill is a great coach, he's a great teacher, and he's great at developing players. So if you have that many new players, you really don't have a chance to develop them. So, you know, my expectation, it's going to be a little bit of a work in progress, and he's going to make all these players better, and they're going to benefit and create more value for their future because of Bill.

1:33:30But it's going to take a little time. And I think everybody should understand that.

1:33:34Pat McAfee:Yeah, we're going to be there on Monday for TCU-UNC. Big kickoff for them on Monday night down in Chapel Hill. Michael Lombardi just keeps saying how beautiful it is. You need to come down and see us. It's beautiful down here. He's always selling. You have to, I guess, as a college football coach. That's kind of what they're doing now. Nobody did it as good as you, brother. Connor has a question for you. Yeah, Coach, we just had Ryan Day on, and we kind of talked about the mentality of the team going into this year, how last year was great, but they didn't do anything. And we were kind of talking about how it almost turns into a relief of winning versus wanting to win in that type of mindset.

1:34:11But for your teams with Bama, I'm assuming after you guys won national championships, it was very similar. hey, now that that season's over, we haven't done anything. I think you've mentioned before, you know, I've taken 24 hours after a national championship, and then you're right back to it. What do you think that will do for Ohio State? Do you think that is probably the smartest way to go about it for both the coach and the team? And do you think that they'll have a lot of success in, you know, going on to try and repeat this year? Well, I do think it's something you have to overcome. And you mentioned the word relief.

1:34:47I call it relief syndrome. Oh yeah. In other words, you do something special, which society promotes this, so we all grow up this way. And then we should get rewarded for that, and we should be able to rest on our laurels. You know, kind of like when we all made an A on the first test, and we jacked around for the next two weeks and made a C on the next test, and we were happy to have a B average.

1:35:09Pat McAfee:Yeah, but I started at C though. Yeah, that's the issue. So you had to make an A on the next test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so but this whole concept of having to deal with success because you know success is not a continuum and nothing in the past that's going to that you had success with is going to really affect your ability to have success in the future. So this this is not normal. I mean, it's something that you you know players have to be aware of you have to coach it into them that they can't rest on their laurels because everybody's shooting at you. You become the mountain. Ohio State won the national championship.

1:35:45Everybody wants to beat them even worse now than ever before. So players have to understand that. It's a new team. Everybody's got to buy into the new role that they have, the leadership that they have, and you got to replace that hunger that's created by not having success. Like Ohio State getting beat by Michigan last year probably had as much to do with them winning the national championship is anything.

1:36:07Pat McAfee:Absolutely. A lot of re-perspective. Yeah. You coming out and yelling at their fan base after that was awesome. Sweet. They needed it. Listen. They needed it. Get in line and shut up. This team can win a national championship. Right. Yeah. And they got this psychological disposition about Michigan that's just killing them. Yeah. Michigan's dancing the entire time. Because even when Ohio State wins a national championship, Now Michigan's getting credit for it. And that is certainly something they dance with all off season. AJ has a question for you, coach. Yeah, college football rivalries, it's a unique world we live in, I guess, in this whole situation.

1:36:44But for tomorrow, noon kickoff out here, what are you expecting to see? Like, what do you, I guess in the first game too, when you're coaching, your first time you guys go on the field, what do you wanna see out of your team? Well, you know, you wanna see your team execute with discipline and not make the kind of errors in the game that are gonna affect the outcome of the game. Like last night in the Nebraska game, first one at the one, guy jumps offside. You get penalized, then you end up kicking a field goal. I mean, those kind of things just absolutely kill you. And those are the kind of mistakes that you want to have the discipline to be able to execute in a game so you don't have those issues and you don't have those problems.

1:37:19Let me just tell you something. No coach in the country really knows exactly how his team's going to respond in the first game. You know, because you don't even know based on how your offense did against your defense, maybe your defense is really good and you think you don't have a lot of confidence in your offense but the fact of the matter is just because your defense is pretty good your offense may not be that bad. So you have all these questions running around in your mind and you can't really know what's going to happen until they go out there and play. You know and one of the things that I used to do that you know my assistants used to get mad at is they wanted to coach all the time and Belichick did this to me.

1:37:59All right I coached all the time And every now and then we'd have a team session where Bill said, let the players play. You're not allowed to make calls for them. You're not allowed to correct them. You're not allowed to do anything. Let the players play. So that's what happens in a game. Nobody tells you what to do. Nobody makes the call at linebacker which way you're slanting or what coverage we play in. So you've got to let the players play so they can take it to the game and they have confidence in what they're going to do, which is really important in the first game. and the more maturity your team has probably the better chance you have to do that in the first

1:38:32Pat McAfee:game returning starters is always something we look at and then amount of starts that players have during the transfer portal era now is something that's looking at especially with what sig was able to do at indiana even though he's talking all that shit all the time he was certainly able to turn over that roster and that culture pretty quickly are we going to see more of that you think like vandy was obviously awesome because of everything that happened with that their entire run arizona state comes out of nowhere they win the big 12 they get into the dance Indiana, nobody expected ever to be good at football in the Big Ten.

1:39:01Pat McAfee:Feels like it does provide for that, this modern era that we have here. Yeah, there's no question about it. And everybody's choosing how to build a team. And I think it's interesting that Clemson has kind of built their team, developing the players that they recruited and have very little coming out of the portal or going into the portal. Where LSU, who has a lot of people coming back, they have the most players that started six games or more at a major college 18 guys in the portal have started six games in, you know, power four. Yeah, big games. Yeah. So they've added a ton of people to their team that can have an impact on the game.

1:39:38But how are those pieces going to fit together, especially early in the season? Yeah, if you pay the wrong guy. Pay the wrong guy. Shit out of luck.

1:39:48Pat McAfee:Yep. That was a great moment last year. That was a great moment. You haven't paid attention to any of the NFL stuff right now with Micah? How do you know Jerry Jones well? How can you not? Yeah, it's everywhere. I do not know Jerry Jones very well. But, man, I tell you what, when you've got a significant, dominant player, especially pass rusher, I mean, those guys are so hard to find. I mean, boy, it would be just hard for me as a coach to let a guy like that go. But it is what it is. It is what it is. And there's been a lot of great clips coming out of all of it, including Micah celebrating around the house and telling his mom she's retired forever, obviously.

1:40:28Pat McAfee:And that's cool for him from a personal side. But the Green Bay Packers feel the exact same way you do. They go, hold on, we just picked up two firsts. And Kenny Clark, great player. Nobody's talking about that enough. Great player. He's a great player. Kenny's got to stop the run. Kenny's a great player. And Jerry said he got to stop the run. But I think there's a lot of teams saying, is this, did we all know this is what it took to get Micah Parsons? I think anybody would want a dominant pass rusher on their team. Jerry's getting judged pretty hard right now by everybody. Yeah, I think so because, you know, there's certain guys that affect the game.

1:41:00And, you know, wide receivers can affect the game. Quarterback can affect the game. Great runner can affect the game. But pass rushers in this day and age of football, when over 60 % of the plays in the NFL are passes, and that guy can impact the game, not just in sacks, but how many times do you affect the quarterback? And how much is he worried about you as a rusher? I just think that's the one place on defense that a guy can really make an impact. Like, you could say our whole secondary, we've got to cover five guys. You've got one pass rusher, you don't have to cover anybody except the quarterback.

1:41:33Pat McAfee:Yeah, you're right. Ball's coming out quick. Coming out quick. Ball's coming out quick, too. I mean, that makes everybody else's life very easy. And that's how Ty feels as a Green Bay Packers fan. And we as football fans, can't thank you enough, brother. How about tomorrow, Coach Corso's final game day? That's good. We I just we just went through the meeting a little bit ago They'll be paying their respects to the man who did a lot for college ball What are your thoughts about him before you get on the show and then now being able to work with them last year? Well, you know the one thing I think Lee Corso did and and he did it with such grace is You know, we used to just watch games and people would you know got call the game He brought entertainment to this business, which is what you do and we all have an opportunity to do for the fans.

1:42:17It made it better for the fans. It was more enjoyable. He's got a great personality. I still remember, I mean, when I was playing at Kent State, we had Jack Lambert and we played his Louisville team and they had Howard Stevens and, you know, Tom Jackson and all these guys. I mean, they had a really, really good team and they beat the shit out of us. It was something. so I know him from the coaches side too yeah I'm playing against him and seeing what he did in Indiana we played him when I was here at Ohio State and but what he did for the for the entertainment business part of it is to me the greatest contribution that he made to college sports I think I think people don't realize the value of that yeah I think college football uh

1:43:07Pat McAfee:on a rocket ship, obviously, because the tradition and the pageantry and the game and football is the greatest sport on earth. But like what he did to help you watch what game day's growth was with Lee Corso and college football's popularity. And it's like there was a driving force behind a lot of it. And Lee Corso's face is synonymous with it. And it's like getting a chance to watch him work here the last couple of years, obviously been an honor. He's been incredibly kind to me. And just as a fan, whenever I watch it before, I like somebody, you know, not scared to go in there and spin it up.

1:43:35Pat McAfee:You know, mix it up a little bit. And it's not just like me that is benefiting from that. You think about everybody. Charles Barkley, obviously, is a massive person I look up to in his business because the way he speaks his mind, the way he delivers, the way he entertains every single time he speaks. It's like Lee Corso, Charles Barkley are the two, in my eyes, that are up there in the Mount Rushmore of sports entertainment. And, yeah, tomorrow's going to be a sweet day honoring him, you know? Yeah, I know. You know my first experience at Texas A &M I'm a coach, so I'm serious about the game All right, and I get there and you know, they're singing to you when you come on stage.

1:44:11Okay Country roads that's me. All right, and then you're standing on a chair. Yeah, and then he's dancing the jig with Notre Dame stuff And I'm saying what the hell I get into here

1:44:25Pat McAfee:You're great. You're great though. You are a phenomenal you're one for one. You want an Emmy? Yeah, boom That's it. A couple of them. Didn't he win a couple of them? He won the newcomer, right? And then before, I thought before too, Saban and Bill, when they had their sit down one-on-one for an hour, they won an award for that as well. You're just collecting these things, I guess? Yeah, might as well. Is there trophies? I'm going to win them. Go to Saban football. It was a little bit of a bummer, though. He's only said all right once. I really just want to make an impact and help people understand the game better and enjoy the game.

1:45:09You're doing a great job. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Is it fun? Has it been fun?

1:45:16Pat McAfee:It sounds like you was told not to do this. Have you been having fun with it for real? Yeah, I love it. It's been very enjoyable. And I like the preparation part of it, too. It keeps me watching film, evaluating players, looking at schemes. I love it keeps you in it without having to you know 14 hours a day We'll go to the press conference afterwards or have to recruit a kid back to your team I mean, there's a lot that you don't have to do you've earned this position and we're all lucky to watch it can't wait to see tomorrow on game day and Every single week joining us on Fridays. We're very thankful for that good.

1:45:47I appreciate you having me. Thank you so much

1:45:49Pat McAfee:He's a gentleman the goat coach Yeah, coach! Coach! Locked in. Coach, coach, coach. All right, guys. There it is. See, why couldn't we get a couple of those? That's what I'm saying. Clean fit. Always a clean fit. Oh, yeah. He looks pretty jacked. He is jacked. Might have been squatting. You ever seen him as a shirt off? 12-pack. Did you get better this offseason or no? The abs that go. Matt Collins. Okay, sure. Sure. Kind of like age. What? You shooting scratch golfer now? Oh, Coach Patricia. Matt Patricia's over here. Nice. Is he coming on? Coach, Coach, Coach, Coach, Coach. Hey, will you step up here real quick?

1:46:35Yeah, he was trying to come on and say hi. Oh, that was a great hug. It was. That was a great, bro. Dap up hug. Coach athletic? By far. Coach looks great. He does? Let's go.

1:46:48Pat McAfee:He does look good. Nice healthy spot. He looks really good. He's got a good beard on him right now, too. Does he have his wallet and keys on him? That was an amazing moment. Epic moment. Absolutely epic moment. That defense is going to be pretty good with Matty P at the helm. Also, Caleb Dons is out there. Forget about that. You start diving back into all this college football stuff, and Tone's guide was obviously phenomenal at it, but also just just diving in, watching film from last year. You forget that Caleb Downs is the best player on the field when he's on the field. He's a genius on there.

1:47:25Think about that. There's a safety, too. A guy that can – great safeties can cover up a lot of mistakes if there are any kind of mistakes early.

1:47:31Pat McAfee:Yeah, and then on the offense side, Jeremiah says, see you, coach. Good luck, man. Good luck. Good luck. Oh, wait, coach. It's going to be fun. Hey, we missed you, too, bro. Hey, Arch can move, bro. This ain't another Manning. Spy on him. This ain't another Manning. Yeah, this ain't another Manning. Arch does like to wiggle. Arch took a shot last year in the playoffs, too, and popped right up. Yeah. I'm impressed with him. Yeah, did not whine at all about, hey, I got a concussion. He was right back at football. Because I don't think he knew. What, you think he was so concussed he didn't know he was concussed?

1:48:02Pat McAfee:Yes. He definitely knew. He had to get up. Whoa, shit. Because he bobbled a little bit. He did. Oh, yeah. They thought it was going to be a fumble. He did wobble. Looks like one. A bit wobbly. How about when he – I mean, he's got the mocks. Oh, yeah. The cookout this summer? exactly new age manning yes he is he is the modern evolved manning that he's been at the manning passing academy since he's 10 years old all these guys go to the manning passing academy trying to learn stuff he's been doing it since he's 10 so like there's so many things that i think are going to be showcased this season especially in a sark offense remember what he was able to do with mac jones whenever you have a quarterback that is so dynamic and can understand everything that's going on not the quinn ewers couldn't but they got four twos everywhere and sark and uh arch have been together for a while now that's huge arch is speaking the same language as sark has been since he's 10 but definitely now in this entire thing it's like i'm very eager to see this offense for texas because obviously you're gonna have to be great to win a super bowl but or win a national championship but it's like arch is the heisman favorite for a reason and uh to To start with Ohio State in Columbus is a pretty wild move.

1:49:11Pat McAfee:I mean, that is a wild start to your career. Kind of dropped into the fire. With Matt Patricia, multiple times Super Bowl champion, defensive coordinator kind of scheming against you, I'm eager to see what this Texas offense looks like. Because I know the possibilities are huge for them. Oh yeah, and think if you are the Texas offense and you're Sark, you're thinking, okay, what kind of defense is Matty Patricia going to put in install for this Ohio State team? We know they're replacing a lot of great players, but they have a lot of great players coming back. That's the thing, too. The whole first quarter, the whole first half might be kind of a feeling out process.

1:49:42Let's see how we're going to respond to each other.

1:49:44Pat McAfee:What have we not talked about that we need to talk about today? Boys on this Feel Good Friday. A couple people have kind of come into the stadium. Got a West Virginia Mountaineer guy up here. Good to see him. A couple lads in the back just got here. I believe the AD was here. Brady Quinn's here. Love that. Unbelievable. Brady Quinn looks unbelievable. I don't even know if we're allowed to show him because, you know. Definitely don't. Big rivalry situation. If we show him, I would not have a problem with it, but there's potentially a lot of stuff going on. Hey, can you show Brady Quinn right there?

1:50:16Pat McAfee:Quick shot. Give him a thumbs up, Brady. Can you show Brady Quinn right there? I'm sorry. Let me cut to that. Oh, he's hiding. Oh, he's hiding. What a wutz. He wutz. Not allowed. Oh, he's scared. What a wutz. Not allowed. Not allowed. Not allowed. Not allowed. Too handsome. Too handsome for the show. With Brady Quinn, Pat, did you see the new Notre Dame promo with Shane Gillis? Yes, yes, I did see that. I enjoy that his dad had a major speaking role in that time. I like that dad's in there, and I like that he's wearing Notre Dame stuff. They also just put out their injury report for Sunday's game, and he is actually on the injury report.

1:51:00I believe he is out, and the reason they listed was tailgating. like he's actually classic he's on the injury report with real players

1:51:09Pat McAfee:I don't want to give anything away but he was the guy that I FaceTimed that was watching the Catholics First Convicts documentary the other day and I'll tell you what he did have a he is an athlete too he's no longer that offensive line size he slimmed down a little he's doing arenas now he's doing arenas now you know he's got to be able to be mobile he's got to be active ATH before Shane Gillis is how it's always he's supposed to be and you know whenever he's taking a pass that people think this guy's an absolute stud but what he's eager for is to see if this notre dame team can get through week one this is a massive week one the rest of their schedule if we've looked at it it's gonna get real loud for the people that don't like notre dame there no people that don't like nerd i'm not saying i'm one of those people my name's patrick mcafee okay i love when the irish are fighting Sure.

1:51:56Pat McAfee:I love it. Just like him. Bang. A lot of dogs. I do love that. I do love that. But if you look at their schedule, there's going to be a lot of people in the Big Ten, in the SEC, and certainly the Big 12, West Virginia's conference, that are going to say, where's the schedule? And Notre Dame, obviously, it's not their fault. They are in a great position with how big their fans are. But this is a big one, I think, for the old resume for the rest of the season for Notre Dame. Yeah, you don't want to get behind the eight ball early on. But also, going back to that Shane Gillis commercial, how about Marcus Freeman's performance?

1:52:30Great job. There's not many college coaches that could perform. It was long, too. That wasn't just like a short thing. That took some time to film.

1:52:36Pat McAfee:It was a full content piece. Yeah. Yeah, it was a full content piece. It wasn't just a 30-second commercial. Marcus Freeman, his hair's grown in real strong. He looks good, man. Marcus looks – Real strong. He's aging in reverse, too. I was with him here at Ohio State. He was two years younger than me. The guy looks awesome. Looks like he's 25. I'm excited to see Miami's Carson Beck-led team down there. Because obviously if Miami continues to run like they did last year with Cam, maybe that Miami fan base is back. Maybe the U is back. Maybe Gumpy and the boys can get excited for the U kind of coming into college football relevancy again, pal.

1:53:13Yeah, I don't think this is going to be good.

1:53:15Pat McAfee:Ah, of course. Ah, of course. Gumpy, you want to come up here? Gumpy, you should come up here. I wonder if there will be any fans on Hard Rock. Gumpy traveled. Come in right here, Goop. There's going to be fans, Tone. Miami has a hard time filling that place up. Very, very hard time. A bunch of Notre Dame people will go to that. Yeah, especially take it as a trip down to Florida. All right, let's go get burnt in South Florida and watch the boys play against Miami. We'll get after it again. We're going to run out of time, too, if you don't. We're going to need a sense of urgency out of you, Gump.

1:53:48Pat McAfee:And how's the microphone's backwards, dead backwards on that? That's good. You're good. Yeah, there it is. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. That was up here. Ladies and gentlemen, that's Gumpy right here. Yeah, go. Don't sleep on Miami now. Miami who? Hurricanes. Okay, we won't sleep on them. How's it been over there in the sun? Pretty hot. Yeah, my computer was actually kind of crashed a few times now. TV just crashed out actually here. Yeah, that might be me. Yeah, there's people yelling back here.

1:54:20Pat McAfee:I just drove 16 and a half hours to watch Ohio State kick their ass. Yeah, pretty good. That came through a little bit. That was awesome. It is an honor to be here. College football week one kicks off in a huge way tomorrow. Three top ten matchups. College game day. Coach Corso's final headgear pick. We're lucky as hell to be here. We'll be enjoying college football and football being all the way back. Shout out to Buck, D, and Ryan, the camera people here. Shout out to all the ESPN people that set this up for us to be live. Shout out to you boys back in Indy for making this happen. And football is all the way back.

1:54:55Pat McAfee:Let's celebrate the shit out of that. We'll be here for Overreaction Monday. Let's enjoy this. Greatest weekend of all time. Goodbye. I feel like I really nailed it. Nailed it. What timing is? You nailed it. Okay, sick. Speaking of the cameras, are these brand new, like, 16K cameras? Because this is the clearest you guys have ever been. Yep. So I think this is the actual game day camera. Oh, that makes sense. And also the lighting. The lighting is very good. Because remember, I think lighting is a big deal. You know what else has been great? The audio. Yeah. The audio has been fantastic. And yeah, this has really gone off without a hitch.

1:55:28Pat McAfee:It feels like, except for the talkback, but we were able to work through all that. This was amazing. And those fucking horns. Yeah. The bottom of the barrel of the biddle. Yeah, those did sound like shite the entire time. Do you think that's like punishment? You know how football players have to run? These guys have fucked up their notes so many times that they've just got to go sit in the top of the stadium and blow their horns. It's just like the jugs machine. Yeah, is it? I genuinely don't know what was going on there. They couldn't have wanted that to be a sound. They had to be tuning their instruments is my guess.

1:56:01You got your dorm room.

1:56:03Pat McAfee:Is that a music hall or something? Yeah, but the stadium. They're going to be in the stadium tomorrow. You got to get your reps in. No, now, Gumpy, now you're kind of getting... Well, I'm used to that. They did that over in Spain a few times. I tell you what, I don't know if I would stand on a box if it was the option. I think that's almost worse. No, I'm with you. The chat is saying you're way too close to age here. Well, he moved over close to me. Oh, look at that. Wow. DoorDash. DoorDash, a new bud. Gump and his hawk. What's up, Harker? Weigh in every week with DoorDash Streaks. Save up to$250 this season when you order on game days.

1:56:43Pat McAfee:DoorDash, bringing everything to you. That's a good new LRAP right there. I like that LRAP. Whose hand is that? I like that LRAP. Is that the duck? Yeah. Is that the... Let's go, ducks. Let's go, ducks. You can kind of line your arm up. Yeah, you're right. Dumpy, you can maybe. You got to get your arm down. There you go. Get a little lower. Yeah, you got to get lower. Come on. Sink down. Way too tall. There it is. Boom. That's it. Thank you for holding that pizza for our friends at DoorDash. Take a bite. What does it feel like? It's a delicious pizza pie. We moved it. We moved it. Dean, get back in there.

1:57:19Pat McAfee:Get back. Get back. Get back to where we were. Got it. A little higher. A little higher. Arms got to go down a little bit. Yeah. Got it. Shout out to Gumpy and DoorDash. Shave up that$250 this season when you order on game day. Delicious piece of pie. That is right. We call it pizza in America, but if you want a pizza pie in your eye, DoorDash will deliver that. Tight eye. That's how Canadians hold pizza. All right. Well, if you were to put it back up, it went with the joke, I'll be. Cross the line. I got to go to a luncheon that started a while ago. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Grand entrance. What time?

1:57:59You're coming in with Tabiddle, right? Tabiddle's leading you in, right? You and all those poopy trumpet players. They're the ones leading you in.

1:58:09Pat McAfee:All right. It's been an honor to be here. We are so thankful to be a part of college football in a tiny way. Thank you all so much for watching. Have the greatest weekend of all time. Boys, great work. Way to battle through the technical difficulties early in the back. Zito, I do believe we pushed it a little bit close today. I think we should have probably turned left whenever we decided to turn right. But the fact that you decided to dive right into it, I respect and appreciate that that is what a Zito production is. One minute and 30 seconds before we went live, everything in my ear started working and in their ear.

1:58:43Pat McAfee:So like that is great work, Z. Appreciate you doing that. Great work, Z. And the fact that you said, yeah, I should attempt to do this at the time in which you did, I was alarmed, but it worked out. So I appreciate you doing that. And to everybody that made this possible, you're the best. All right. Have a great weekend. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice if I changed their life. We're in this thing together. So team on me, team on three, one, two, three, team. Goodbye.

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